So You Farted in His Bed

Farting in bed is one of those things that’s bound to happen to you at some point in your life. Unfortunately, it’s one of those things that you’ll wish never happened, and if you could guarantee that it would never happen again, even at the expense of one of your pinky toes, I could see a few of you going under the knife. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is about expelling intestinal gas that makes people more embarrassed than Ashley Simpson after pulling an Irish jig out of her ass on SNL to cover-up the lip-synching debacle, but it really is the pinnacle of awkward situations.

Usually, the situation is so awkward because one, it is unanticipated (same with most awkward situations), and two, because there is no avoiding that smell of internal garbage lingering in the air like a big fuck you from God. That scent is like the cherry on the sundae of life saying, “You can’t get out of this one buddy.” Pretending it didn’t happen just isn’t an option; it would be like Michael Jackson insisting he doesn’t molest children as the court watches a video of him sticking his tongue down the throat of a 10-year-old boy. The evidence is there, the elephant is standing in the middle of the room, and it’s not going away for at least a few torturous minutes.

"In fart tag, you blame the other person, they blame you, you blame them again, and eventually you both give up and blame the dog."

So what do you do now? Play dead like a possum when it sees its attacker? Blame the other person? Pretend your sleeping? These are all things people have tried, the problem is, not one of them changes the aftermath of the fart. Once it’s unleashed, there’s no sucking that f-bomb back in. It is there, loitering in your nostrils, bound to haunt you for the rest of your days. If you are a girl and you do this, you will stress over the brief moment for weeks to come. Two days after the incident and he hasn’t called you, what do you blame? The fart. You run into him on the street and he kisses you on the cheek instead of the lips… but why? The fart. He gave you a weird look in the library… that’s random, must be because of the fart. Any future moment of awkward tension is instinctively blamed on a millisecond of weakness that happened over a week ago.

So, depending on how comfortable you are with the victim, now teetering on the edge of the other side of the bed, there are a few ways you can handle this...

Your first option is the direct approach. Praying that he isn’t a complete dickhead (if you aren’t sure whether he is or not, this is a good way to find out) you can exclaim, “Oh my god!” then give your best puppy dog eyes, and say that you haven’t been feeling well all day. While this may be bullshit at its finest, it’s still the direct approach because you are admitting that something just happened. If he’s genuine, he should make some sort of joke out of it with you, and let it go. If this is the case, I recommend some generous fellatio the next morning, just to make sure he’s moved on from the whole episode.

Your second option is to play fart tag. In fart tag, you blame the other person, they blame you, you blame them again, and eventually you both give up and blame the dog. Understand, this really only works if there IS a dog in the room, preferably lying on the bed. Guys do fart all of the time though, so if it really is your lucky day, maybe he did fart around the same time and will just take blame… slim chance though.

Your third option is to make some extremely random comment directly following the occurrence. Such as, “Hey, did you hear that so-and-so died?” Or, “Remember how you mentioned you wanted to have a three-way?” Either of these comments should take his mind off of what just happened, even if the stench is still seeping into the sheets.

I do NOT advise pretending you’ve just fallen asleep… unless you let one slip after the two of you have been lying there for at least twenty minutes. In that case, chances are he’s asleep so you don’t even have to worry about it. Otherwise, you’ll most likely do a horrible acting job pretending to be asleep. Besides, if you pop one out and then act like it sent you into an epileptic seizure of sleep, he might REALLY start to wonder how your body functions.

My advice is to do your best to prevent it from happening at all. Don’t eat foods that lead to gas. If you already have, take a gas-ex. If you know it’s going to happen, at least make it to the bathroom, or pretend you have to step outside to take a phone call. And please promise me that you won’t hop out of bed and start doing some sort of distorted Irish jig in front of your man. It’s been proven that that’s about as likely to get you out of something as trying to blame a bunch of plagiarized writing on a research experiment. Cough… Chad Chamley… cough.